STATE CONVENTION—SMALL FREEHOLDS. 
34 5 
things to which, by contrast, that of the humblest possessor of a 
small freehold is king. 
If the spirit of Horace Greeley could indite the editorials of all 
the journals of our land, fostering the true manhood of relying on 
your own exertions for a living, and to despise nothing so much 
as a cringing subserviency to the beck of others to gain your daily 
bread, and if this advice was backed by a consistent example, we 
should hope for a vast improvement in the rising generation. 
Wealth is not so desirable as the faculty or ability to produce 
it; but this faculty is without value unless it can command the 
sources of wealth, and these are not so much mines of gold and 
silver and precious stones, as they are of muscle and mind coex¬ 
isting with intelligence and virtue. There may exist a highly 
prosperous state without the aids ot commerce and manufactures 
other than what may be carried on under the home roof; but 
where will you find either the commercial or manufacturing 
nation which could exist a twelvemonth without the aid of 
agriculture to feed its laborers. 
From these considerations we draw a few final conclusions : 
1st. That the United States possesses in her public domain a 
source of untold wealth if properly guarded and disposed of. 
2d. That the disposition of the public domain, in which is 
wrapped up the 'greatest good to the greatest number, is in small 
portions, say forty to one hundred and sixty acres to actual 
settlers, at the minium price of two dollars and fifty cents per 
acres. 
3d. No grants of public lands by congress for any purpose 
whatever, and all grants now pending, the conditions of which 
have not been complied with, to be immediately revoked. 
As a corollary to the foregoing, we might say that the benefits 
which have been sought for by grants of land to the states for 
educational purposes and internal improvements, might in the 
future be reached by gilts of monies derived from the sales of 
public lands, in such amounts as should be deemed wise in each 
particular case, always holding in view this essential condition, 
that help is to be given only to those who help themselves, ex¬ 
cepting always the helpless. 
4th. There should be an article in the constitution of every 
